best connection from laptop to dac?

whgarrett1394

Hi, I want to buy a external dac to play my digital music. I don't know what would be the best connection. I have a dell inspirion 9300. Haven't bought the dac yet. budget is under 1000.00. The dell has 7 pin s-video type output that supposedly can send digital audio out if you get the right adapter. Do you think usb or coaxial s/pdif? Thanks.

cstmar01

Normally if your using an external DAC with a computer I would look on my sound card to see what I have. Normally I would recommend using digital coaxial out or optical if you have it or the USB connection (however people do find it can have a different sound than the digital outs). I would try both and see what you like unless you don't have a soundcard with the digital outputs.

I have not heard of anyone using a Svideo to send audio at least from what I've read/done.

Music Joe

Since usb is legion with more and more usb dacs out to market why not go usb?

I avoided Dells clunky looking video/spdif adapter dongle and went usb to Dacmagic, laptop running off battery it sounds really good.

The $400 CEntrance [not heard one yet] DACport just got class B in rec'd components as a usb dac/headphone amp and class C as a dac/preamp.

Usb powered - No drivers needed, Plug 'n play with most laptops.

CEntrance's 24-bit USB audio technology is used in Benchmark Dacs.

whgarrett1394

Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated!:)